National Feather
by Eri Berry
Summary: Maximum Ride somehow manages to get herself involved in a treasure hunt.
1. Chapter 1

National Feather

Chapter 1

**A/N Hey guys! This is a Maximum Ride National Treasure crossover, just 'cause I watched the movie again recently, and I was like... What Would Max Do? Thanks for reading and please review! Here we go.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride or National Treasure, all the characters belong to the creators of the stories.**

Snow. I say that one simple little word, and kids all around the world start jumping up and down with tears of joy forming in the corners of their eyes. I say that one simple little word, and I have tears forming in the corners of my eyes for a totally different reason. Ever tried flying through the snow? Two words, not fun. By the way... When I say flying through the snow, I don't mean flying in a metal death trap with engines. I mean flying through the snow with wings. I'm sort of a bird... I'm definitely not a plane... I wish I was Superman. At least my life would be a little bit simpler, but no. Here I am, flying through the snow. I'm Maximum Ride, and this is where my next adventure begins.

Remember all that saving the world and the flock stuff? Yeah... That was a long time ago... Well five or six years ago, I lost track. Anyway, that means I'm around twenty one and no, I havn't changed that much... I can still kick your ass any day. Now, back to the flock stuff. We all went our separate ways. The kids were getting older and they all wanted an education. So they're staying with Dr. Martinez, my mum, and working on that. Iggy got a job working for the government making bombs, and Fang's living somewhere in America, not really sure where any more... We lost contact a while back. Anyway, I was never really the person to settle down, get a good education and all that stuff. So I went exploring, which brings us back to the present. In the snow.

_'Why did I choose to go to one of the coldest places on the planet?'_ I asked myself. _'Why didn't you pick somewhere warm, like Australia?' _I sighed looking to the horizon. I wasn't expecting to see anything, but I did. Where the land met the sky, there was a black smudge. A black smudge that wasn't supposed to be there. I slowly and cautiously flew closer to the smudge, which turned into two black smudges, then three. As I got closer, they started taking shape. It looked like two snow rovers next to something that I was yet to see.

_'Curiosity killed the cat... Lucky I'm a bird.' _I shrugged and flew even closer. I was directly above the third shape._ 'It's a boat.'_ I thought as it took shape. The boat was half buried in the snow and there were a bunch of people digging it out. _'What's a boat doing in the middle of nowhere?' _I wondered._ 'Oh well, time to find out.' _I silently landed behind it so that the people wouldn't notice a freazing bird-chic swoop down from the sky.

Two men were sitting down on the deck of the ship smiling and laughing about something. I peeked my face over the side of the ship to get a better look at what they were doing When all of a sudden the shorter man jumped up from his position and addressed some of the other men on the deck.

"Okay! Let's go!" Three other men including one that looked much younger than the others, moved to a trap door in the deck leading inside the boat and one by one they slipped in.

"Let's find us some treasure!" Said one of the men loudly to the others. I chuckled quietly. 'Treasure_ hunters. This could be interesting.'_ I thought. I peeked over the deck again and saw that at least two men were still digging the ship out of the snow making it hard to follow the four down the trapdoor.

I waited at least five minutes before both men had their backs turned and I made a run for it. I jumped the railing and landed quietly on the deck before sneaking towards the trap door and sliding through the space unnoticed. My feet hit the slippery wooden planks and I just managed to keep myself from falling over and bruising my ass. I quickly raced for cover which happened to be a large wooden dining table. Sliding underneath it I took a look at the ship.

I was surprised how big the interior was considering how it didn't look like a very big ship from the outside. There was a layer of ice coating everything making everything look the same shade of white. I heard quiet voices coming from another trap door towards the front of the ship. Being the curious person I was, I crawled straight towards it and looked down the stairs. There was nobody there so I silently creped inside the room which was filled with hammocks dangling from the ceiling. I creped through the maze of hammocks towards the open door where the voices were coming from and peeked my head through the doorway.

The cargo hold was roughly the same size as the first room and there were hundreds of large barrels and other great hiding spots to choose from. The four men were all gathered around a small box on top of a barrel in the corner of the room, so I scrambled underneath an old bench and listened in on their conversation. From where I was hidden I could hear them perfectly, but I couldn't see the object that they were passing between each other.

"Look at the intimacy of the scroll work on the stem." Said the obvious leader of the group.

"Is it a million dollar pipe?" Asked the youngest member jokingly.

"No, it's a clue." He replied taking the pipe from the other man's hands. I heard a snapping sound and I widened my eyes. '_He came all the way out here, into the middle of nowhere to find treasure. Then snap it? Seriously?'_

"Hey, don't break it!" Said the young man obviously confused about the same thing as me.

"We are one step closer to the treasure gentlemen." He stated proudly.

"I thought you said the treasure would be on The Charlotte." Said one of the men.

The secret lies with Charlotte. I said it could be here." That statement caused the other man to sigh, he was obviously disappointed. He took a step back making it possible for me to see what was going on. The leader had a knife in his hand and he prised the end of his finger. Blood droplets accumulated at the end of his finger and he smeared them on the pipe. That's when I figured out what he was doing. The pipe was like a stamp, and his blood was like the ink. Cool... But gross.

He took out a notebook and rolled the pipe onto one of the pages. It worked, from what I could see, there was a message transferred from the pipe onto the paper. The leader read out the message for all to hear.

"The legend writ,

the stain affected,

The key in silence undetected,

Fifty five in iron pen,

Mr Matlack can't offend."

**A/N Yay! First chapter. Hope you liked it!**

**Please review!**


	2. Chapter 2

National Feather

Chapter 2

**A/N Thanks for reading guys! And please don't forget to review!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride or National Treasure, all the characters belong to the creators of the stories.**

**Last time, on National Feather...**

**The leader read out the message for all to hear.**

"**The legend writ,**

**the stain affected,**

**The key in silence undetected,**

**Fifty five in iron pen,**

**Mr Matlack can't offend."**

_'What is all that supposed to mean?' _I thought.

"It's a riddle," The leader stated. "I need to think." He started pacing around the cargo hold murmuring to himself constantly. "The legend writ the stain affected, what legend? There's a legend of the treasure. The stain affects the treasure. How?" He stopped pacing in front of the bench that I was hiding under. " A key in silence undetected." He was quiet for a few seconds, then you could practically see the light bulb switch on above his head. "Wait."

_'Please keep walking, please keep walking.' _I begged in my head over and over. But no, he sat down on the left side of the bench. I covered my mouth with my hands and prayed that nobody would notice me.

"The legend, the key... a map. Maps have legends maps have keys. It's a map, an invisible map so-" He was interrupted by the other man who walked up to the bench where the leader was sitting.

"Wait a minute. What do you mean invisible?" He asked quickly.

"The stain affected could refer to a die or an agent used to bring out a certain result," The leader said, and of course the other guy sat on the bench right above me. His feet were so close that if I wanted to I could stick out my hand and touch them. "And with the key in silence undetected the implication is that the affect into make what was undetectable detectable." He paused to think. "Unless the key in silence could be-" He was cut off again.

"Prison." The man who had stayed silent up until now said.

If you asked me it sounded like a random guess.

"Albuquerque." Said the young guy taking a random guess. "See I can do it too. Snorkel." He murmured as an afterthought. The quiet gut shook his head at his silly remark.

"That's where the map is. Like you said 55 an iron pen. An iron pen is a prison." The leader went into one of his thinking rants again.

"Or it could be, since the primary writing medium of the time was iron Gaul ink, the pen is... Just a pen. Then why not say a pen? Why- Why say iron pen?"

"Because it's a prison." The quiet guy murmured believing that he was definitely right.

"Wait a minute, iron pen. The pen does not describe the ink in the pen. It describes what was penned, it was iron, it was firm, it was mineral. No no no no no wait." He thought. "It was firm, it was adamant, it was resolved. What was resolved?" He sighed. "Mr Matlack can't offend. Timothy Matlack was the official scribe of the Continental Congress. Calligrapher, not writer, and to make sure not to offend the map it was put on the back of, a resolution that he transcribed." He took a deep breath. "A resolution, that fifty five men signed... The Deceleration Of Independence."

The men sighed, relieved and proud that they had figured out the almost impossible riddle, but the youngest one laughed.

"Come on, there is no invisible map on the back of The Deceleration Of Independence."

"It's clever really," Sighed the guy above me on the bench. "A document of that importance would ensure the map's survival, and you said there were several Masons sign it, yeah?"

"Yeah, nine for sure." The leader responded.

"We'll have to arrange a way to examine it." He sighed.

"This is one of the most important documents in history. They're not gonna let us waltz in there and run chemical tests on it."

"Well then what do you propose we do?"

"I don't know!"

It was silent for a few seconds and I could sense the gears turning in the guy's head.

"We could borrow it." My eyes widened.

_'Oh my god. They're gonna steal The Deceleration Of Independence!' _I yelled in my head.

"Steal it? I don't think so." I let out a sigh of relief, then covered my mouth again. Thankfully nobody heard me.

"Ben, the Treasure of the Knights Tempeler is the treasure of all treasures."

"Oh, I didn't know that. Really?" He said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Look Ben," Ahh, so the leader's name is Ben. "I understand your bitterness, I really do. You spent your entire life searching for this treasure only to have the respected historical community treat your family with mockery and content. You should be able to rub this treasure in their arrogant faces. I want you to have the chance to do that."

There was silence.

"How?" Asked Ben quietly.

_'No Ben! Don't go over to the dark side!' _I silently pleaded.

"We all have our areas of expertise, you don't think mine are limited to writing cheques do you?" He asked jokingly. "I've arranged a number of operations of questionable legality."

"I'd take his word for it if I were you." Said the quiet guy as he walked over to Ben.

"So don't worry. I'll make all the arrangements."

Again, it was silent while Ben went over his options in his head.

"No." Ben said firmly, The man sitting above me stood up menacingly. I got ready to jump out and save the day if things got violent.

"I really need your help here."

"Ian, I'm not gonna let you steal The Deceleration Of Independence."

_'Okay so good guy is Ben and bad guy is Ian. I can remember that.'_

"Okay, from this point on all you're going to be is a hindrance."

The quiet guy from earlier quickly pulled a handgun out of his jacket and pointed it at Ben.

"Hey!" Yelled the young man who I had forgotten about.

'_Not good, not good, not good!' _I inwardly screamed. I couldn't really do anything at all without gettiing my face blown up because I was right between Ben and Ian's gun. If I made the slightest move they would all see me, and that would not be good at all...

"What are you gonna do? Are you gonna shoot me Shaw?" Asked Ian mockingly.

'Shaw' nodded with a sick smile on his face. I was about to break my cover and somehow save the day when Ben started talking again.

"Well you can't shoot me, there's more of the riddle that you don't have and I do. I'm the only one

who can figure it out and you know that."

"He's bluffing." Said Ian

"We've played poker together Ian, you know I can't bluff."

"Tell me what I need to know Ben," He threatened. "Or we'll shoot your friend."

Shaw turned his gun to the young guy a few metres away.

"Woah." The young guy took a step back and put his hands in the air.

"Quiet Riley! Your job's finished here!"

I started to crawl out from under the bench when Ben lit a flare and held it out in front of him. Ben and Shaw both turned to him, and so did Ian's gun.

"Look where you're standing." He said. All of them, including me looked down to see that where they were all standing(and I was laying), in a thick layer of gunpowder. "All that gunpowder. You shoot me, I drop this, we all go up." Then apparently everyone but Ben noticed the same thing at the same time.

"Ben." Riley grumbled.

"What happens when the flare burns down?" Asked Ian with a smile. "Tell me what I need to know Ben."

"You need to know... if Shaw can catch!" Ben threw the flare to Shaw. He dropped the gun and tried to catch the burning flare that was falling towards the gunpowder.

The scene looked like it was in slow motion to me, Ben and Riley moving backwards, and Ian and Shaw trying to catch the flare. They failed.

In the spur of the moment, I shot out my hand and caught the flare centimetres before it hit the ground. All eyes turned to the hand that shot out of nowhere and caught the flare. Their eyes went from my hand to my arm and they finally realised what happened.

"Who the hell are you!" Yelled Ian.

"Ugh... An innocent passer by?" I said, it sounded more like a question than an answer.

"Come on!" Ian yelled to Shaw. He pulled him to the door and grabbed the gun out of Shaw's hand. Ian took aim and shot. Luckily, being a bird kid comes with lightening fast reflexes. My arm acted on instinct and shot back towards my body. Ian slammed the door shut and dropped the lock, trapping us inside the cargo hold.

"Are you okay?" Asked Riley as he helped me up, but I wasn't paying much attention. I was staring at the flare I dropped setting the gunpowder around our feet alight.

Ben saw the quickly spreading flames and ran to the other side of the ship. Riley grabbed my hand and yanked me over towards Ben, who was franticly stomping on the floor. He found what he was looking for and started clawing at the wooden floorboards. His fingers caught something and he pulled open a hidden trapdoor.

"What is this?" Asked Riley.

"Smugglers hold! Get in!" He yelled. Ben held open the door while Riley and I jumped down, we made space for Ben to jump in to. He slipped in and shut the door behind him. We were in a narrow corridor with a low ceiling, so low that we couldn't even stand up.

"Crawl! Crawl! Crawl!" Riley yelled. The three of us started crawling as fast as we could through the corridor on our hands and knees. All of a sudden, Ben stopped crawling and pulled a solid metal door down from the ceiling just in time.

**BOOM!**

Riley's arm pushed me down into the floor as the world around us exploded.

**A/N Yay! You're still reading it! Please review! It encourages me to keep writing!**


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